Place name meaning "in the middle of nowhere"
My father, a
retired
U.S. Air Force navigator, had a number of large
maps that he had collected over the years. There was a 3-panel
mercator projection world map from about
1955 that I used as a wall decoration at my place, on the 3-door
built-in closet of my bedroom, which it fit quite well. It was great for staring at when pondering my reading, and for just looking at first thing in the morning or late at night.
One day I was looking closely at the coastline of
North Africa, wondering about
Tunisa, nights there, etc., when I noticed that down in the southwest
quadrant of
Egypt there was a dot for a town with the name
Bumfuqh!
Is the place
depicted on the map the source of the popular
phrase and its variations? Was this the addition of a
wiseacre cartographer? I suspect the latter, though the former makes a great deal of sense. These types of phrases don't come from
nowhere.